As Dr. Sexson has asked us to read, and comment on one page of Stiener, it came to mind that i should probably search for a passage the really Intrigued me. To be honest however, I jut randomly opened up the book and started reading. I was lucky though, to have found a passage the reflected an idea that I often consider, especially with our current government. Steiner comments (while relating Antigone to the French Revolution), “In Antigone the dialectic of intimacy and of exposure, of the ‘housed’ and of the most public, is made explicit. The play turns on the enforced politics of the private spirit, on the necessary violence which political-social change visits on the unspeaking inwardness of being.” Now, the book does not underline this, I have just chosen to do so to highlight the point of interest. From this reading, are we to understand that for revolutionary change violence is nessacary? For if we are to read into the eternities, and if Antigun is the quintessential classic, is it not absolutely necessary for all revolutions proceeding that of Antigone’s must contain within it the ingrained violence of which Stiener speaks? I myself feel that yes they must. Although violence is often seen upfront as gruesome and vicious, I still feel it is necessary to use to combat the even greater violence which we oppose. As we have seen there is a strong voice against our current system, the Patriot Act and agencies such as the NSA are literally revoking our “god-given liberties” as we the citizens accept this somewhat apathetically. While there are others however, who do actively oppose the government, they fail to read into the eternities and use the one tool that has historically been the back-bone of revolution: violence. In demonstrations, the people are afraid to stand up to the henchmen-cops of our government for we fear that using violence is wrong. We should however be reminded of Antigone, her fearlessness, the cowered ness of her sister Ismene, and then place ourselves in the shoes of one of the two.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”- Thomas Jefferson
